Stars of the Midnight Range
by Wr3n
Summary: A wary conversation by the fire takes an unexpected turn. Whisky, women and song, out in the wild Mojave... *OnEsHoT*


**I **looked over at Cass, quietly and concernedly watching her as the firelight danced over her soft, prettily freckled face. Her blue eyes glimmered brightly in the darkness, in shades of both gold and blue, and her hair hung down low, untidily draping past her shoulders, obscuring her face a little while the cold wind passed the both of us, and the fire, by. My heart started to pump a little faster beneath my medic's long military jacket, while I selectively recalled a few words that she'd dropped during a conversation not too long ago, just in the early morning, matter of fact. But, it wasn't the right time to mention them though, nor was it the time to insinuate complications, be they tender, maybe even uplifting or not, into our currently good-standing and strong relationship. Cass was going through a lot right now, having sold her caravan and only just uncovering the conspiracy round it, she had a lot to think about. I didn't want to add to it at all. Especially, not for selfish reasons, even if they were _honest_ selfish reasons. They, I, could wait.

But my eyes flicked back up at her nonetheless. She was looking down, absently, at the glowing reddish embers beneath the roiling, crackling flames of the small fire between us. She looked desolate, heavily pensive, broken almost. I didn't like seeing her that way, since she was usually so full of verve and fire, ready to sling a scatter of buckshot at anyone, or anything in her way. Yet now, Cass sipped demurely, uncaringly at her fresh, but half-emptied, bottle of whisky, I felt like I wanted to say something, encourage her, soothe her, somehow stop the thoughts in her head for her. But I was lost for words, all I could seem to do was look at her, stare, hoping that something would come to mind eventually, wishing that I could tell her she wasn't alone, that everything would be alright in time. But those things weren't enough, even for me, so I didn't say them, not wanting to sound ingenuous, or at a loss.

"Ya' got something stirring in that mind over there, Vix?" Cass mumbled blandly, her gaze still fixed, clever blue eyes staring carelessly at the coals of the fire, "Don't pretend I can't see you over there…" Cass smiled faintly, raised the tall, half-empty bottle to her lips, and took a long, deep swig of the amber liquor trapped inside.

I cleared my unused throat, stared down at the wavering, light-orange flames of the fire, for some kind of courage, inspiration. "I was-," I stopped, squinched up my face all of sudden and decided to backtrack; I wanted to ask her outright, maybe it would help, mean something to her, I had to try at least, "Are you okay, Cass?" I asked, genuinely uneasy. I could hear it; worry quavering in my own thin, reedy voice.

Cass grunted out a laugh. She smiled vaguely, prettily crookedly. "Yeah," she drawled quietly, "There's just a fucking lot to think about, Vix." She sighed, finally glanced up at me. Her red hair played over the pale skin of her forehead, against the slopes of her whisky-flushed cheeks. "I just wish none of this had happened," she whispered over to me.

I felt my eyes widen a little, my mouth parted in silence. I'd never seen her like this before. I wanted to instantly reach out to her, I wanted to instantly speak, pacify, reassure, but the words stuck inside me thickly, I didn't want to say the wrong thing. She was so fragile, I could see it, and she knew I could too, if I said something stupid it would damage the both of us, and we'd both never forget it really. I was just staring at her dumbly. I was a fucking mute all of a sudden, staring at her across the flicking, bright flames and sparks between us.

She still looked over at me, my light green eyes drank in her blues as if I could speak to her that way, I was stuck, I was dumb for her, but maybe, I thought, maybe my silence was the best thing. I'd never been a conversationalist, Cass knew that, so maybe I shouldn't try and force something out, even if I wanted to for her. I could see her thinking; I could tell words were just about to spill, slip out from her soft, rosy lips. I closed my mouth, found my head nodding enigmatically, I hoped, sincerely, that my face, my own eyes, my quietude showed understanding and warmth borne of a long simple friendship, but most of all, encouragement. I was ready to listen, I wanted to listen, I fucking hoped that I was conveying it to her.

Cass' mouth twitched at the corner. I saw her hand tighten around the neck of the bottle she held. "I-," she looked away at last, stared down at the dirt for a second, then glanced back up at me. She fixed me with a hard look, and the fire played steel and light in her eyes, both within and without, "I still wish," she said quietly, a little bitterly, "I _still_ fucking wish we'd killed them all, Vix…" she said lightly, but with a dark, hinted desire.

I nodded, bit at my lip. I understood. How could anyone not? But killing Gloria Van Graff and Alice McLafferty would not have stopped the problem properly, nor would it have helped Cass in the long run. She would have regretted it, and carried the guilt of it on her shoulders, behind a flimsy mask of retribution. And I wouldn't be the one to just go ahead and let _that_ happen simply because Cass was justifiably distraught, feeling vengeful, hateful. I would have rather gone against the whole Legion horde by myself than stand by and let that happen. But her wishing them dead, even now, I could definitely understand. Hell, I could imagine them strung up for crow-food myself, just because of what they'd done, and were still doing inadvertently, to Cass.

"But you were right," Cass was saying softly, "The way we did it in the end…" Cass nodded her head, "It was for the best. Even if it's not as _final_ or _quick_ as I would've hoped." Cass shook her head.

As she gazed, looking a little gloomy and insipid, back down at the fire, I unexpectedly stirred. "I'm sorry, Cass," I offered gently, "I'm sorry all this happened," I felt my dark, raven brows lowering in feeling, too many to tag or register even inside my head, "It's not what you wanted, I knew that, but I couldn't," I stumbled, stopped of a sudden, I didn't want to say too much now to overburden, or hurt her somehow, I started to struggle again, "I didn't want anything-,"

Cass lifted up her hands and she laughed lightly. "I know, Vix," she said delicately, "I already know. Don't get your panties in a knot about it, alright?" Cass looked over at me, smiling warmly. On a whim, she got up jauntily, stiffly, and paced her way around the small fire. Her boots scraped and crunched over the hard dirt ground as she went. When she was close enough though, she sat down cross-legged in the dirt, right next to me.

I smiled across at her. Feeling stupid and probably looking it too. She laughed a little at me, then laid her right arm over my shoulder and pulled me close so our heads were touching, bumped together like the chums we were. "I know I can always depend on you," she mumbled into my black, unladylike hair, "You got my fuckin' back no matter what shit I get us into, Vix. And you'll fish us both out the right way, every fucking time."

Cass released her hold on me, and I slowly pulled away, feeling the warmth building up inside me at her reassurance. She made me happy, whole, strong in ways she could never imagine, and maybe she'd never know, but I was okay with that. Because what we had now, was just as precious as what I imagined we _could _have. I grinned softly to myself. "I couldn't ever do anything else," I replied simply to her, "You're important, Cass," I said, feeling a tiny bit brave and suddenly on a roll, not having tripped over my own fucking tongue yet, "Friends are hard to come by in the Mojave."

Cass nodded, apparently mulling what I'd said. She took a small sip from her bottle of whisky and tasted at her lips afterwards. "Fucking hard…yeah," she muttered. As I looked over at her I saw her biting at her lip, nodding to herself. I laughed out at her and she swiveled her eyes over to me. "What?" she demanded, smiling confusedly.

"But…" I coaxed, "There was a 'but' in there, I know it," I grinned at her, while she thought about my jibe.

"I don't know," she mumbled through a light laugh, "I just…appreciate you too, I guess." She shrugged inexplicably and took another drink from her bottle. I laughed, scratched the shaven side of my head, silent as a grave. I was contemplating if, maybe saying a 'Thank you' would be polite at the moment, but Cass spoke before I could. "Vix?" she asked, turning to look at me, her reddish brows lowered in thought.

"Yeah?" I asked, trying to sound reassuring, easy, like how I felt inside.

"Do you remember what we talked about, back on the Strip?" she asked bluntly, but blithely.

I laughed. My cheeks got hot. "Yes," I murmured, but the trick lately, especially since all of the emotional caravan troubles, and only a few minutes ago in fact, had been trying to forget what we'd, sort of awkwardly, talked about back at the Strip.

"Well, I fuckin' feel that way with you sometimes, ya' know." Cass stared at me, the flush in her cheeks deepening, growing a little. And not from whisky either, that I could see obviously.

But my face squinched itself up again. I was, despite myself, a little incredulous. Maybe I'd rubbed something off on her by accident, without even meaning it, maybe we'd just spent too much fucking time alone together in the heat and the cold of the Mojave, maybe she'd drunk too much tonight, maybe she was just feeling exceptionally vulnerable after talking like this tonight, all these thoughts whisked through my head, as swift as the wind blowing up skirls of bone-dry dust around us. My face still helplessly squinched up like a fucking moron, I looked over at Cass. "_Really_?" was all I could hear myself asking. I wanted to stick my whole head in the fire right then and there. I sounded squeaky, mindless, frightened, even to myself. Good Lord, I was way better with a rifle and a knife, than I was with my own language. My stomach knotted, I hated the sound of my voice, my words, they both betrayed me incessantly, well, whenever I was feeling something slightly overpowering. Which, was actually a hell of a lot of the time out here.

Cass laughed out guffawingly, deeply over at me, her shoulders shrugging with the powerless mirth. When she squeezed her eyes closed shut and threw her head back to laugh some more, I couldn't help but damn well join her. I laughed stupidly at myself, until my own sides cringed bizarrely. "What the fuck was that?" Cass blurted out, "And your fuckin' face!"

Laughing, I shook my head. "I don't even know," I splurted honestly, "I didn't know what to say!"

Cass looked over at me sympathetically, tears lining her eyes, she tried to stop herself for a second. "I haven't heard that kind of sound from _you_, even with all the Rad Scorp' stings back at Bitter Springs!" We giggled along some more for a bit, quite lost in it all. When we both mastered ourselves after taking in deep, shaking breaths, Cass sniffed wetly, wiping her nose on her brown leather coat-sleeve. "Alright," she breathed, "Now tell me, _honest_," she added, "How do you feel? The same way? What the fuck is this?" she gestured with waving hands between us, her whisky bottle sloshing about madly with the movement.

I promptly sucked on my lip at the question, still trying to breathe properly, but then I looked away reservedly, carefully trying to think. After a second, I glanced back over at Cass. My eyes flicked, for the fraction of a tiny second, down at the bottle held in her hand. But Cass, quick as sheet-lightning, caught the wondering, passing glance.

She opened her mouth in feigned shock and drew up the whisky bottle into the air. "Don't fucking look at the _bottle_ when I'm asking you a serious question, Vix! Jesus! I _am _being serious right now!" Cass, a little wounded from my exposed train of thought, I could see it in her face with a fright immediately poisoning my gut, she tossed the bottle aside, not caring even that it tipped over and spilled a little booze onto the ground. Making a little round clump of whisky-mud near her old cowboy boots.

"I'm sorry!" I replied quickly and reached out to squeeze at her leg, I released my hold even quicker, as I only wanted to be straight with her, not hint at anything else yet, "I'm sorry," I repeated, serious, "I just don't want, I-," I sighed deeply, interrupting myself, completely frustrated with my own mouth, "I don't want this, us, what we have right now, to be mistaken for anything else…" I swallowed down the dryness in my throat, looked into Cass' pretty blue eyes, the eyes that held me happy and hopeful through so many really hard and terrifying times we'd slogged and gunned our way through out in the Mojave together, "I don't want our friendship wrecked, so we won't be able to fix it in the end, you know?" I asked, eyeing her hopefully.

But Cass just smiled. "I think we're so beyond that, Vix," she said lucidly, "Now fuckin' buck up! Answer me straight. _I_ was straight, now be for me," she asked plainly, seriously demanding in her usual Cass-like way.

"I like you," was what I replied, fucking blurted out. I made myself blink, I wouldn't just stick my head in the fire now, I'd snuggle up every member of my body into it. My cheeks burned, and not with fire-heat. I was an ass, simple as that, I knew it. And Cass was just blinking over at me too. I hated my mouth.

After a long, long second or two, with my heart trying to crawl out my ass, Cass slowly smiled at me, though I was looking aside, away. "Alright then," she said and nodded tartly, "Now that's sorted, let's hit the hay. That's enough fucking talk for me…"

I snapped my eyes over at her. I laughed disbelievingly. "_What_?" I asked incredulously. I found my legs unfolding, I gradually stood up and paced a few steps away, lost, extremely happy, yeah, and yet utterly fucking weirded out. This was completely silly, absurdly surprising, completely foreign to boot, and I didn't know what to make of it all, especially out of the suddenness from whence it'd come. I found myself wondering, trying to place where, how this happened. My whole body felt like a giant band-aid had been peeled, stripped off of it, and now I was revealing pink, spongy flesh, to cold open air and sunlight. I was seething with feelings. "Just like that?" I muttered curiously, thankful, scared and just plain marvelling.

Cass, grinning, stood up too then and walked over to me. Her hair blew around her face, but she ignored it, instead she stared at me, into me deeply, her face looking happily calmed, a little brighter than before. "Just like that," she repeated and stepped closer, "You like me. I like you, done," she whispered, "That's how I roll, Vix, and you know it," she smiled widely and took the very last step she could without bumping me over. Noticing the black strands of my bangs flicking about my forehead and over my eyes, Cass slowly reached up her slender hand, carefully swept the long bangs from my face, and tucked them neatly behind my ear with trailing, soft fingertips.

I stared at her, taking everything in like it was all water to me, and I was parched. She stared at me. I'd never felt a feeling so powerful within me before, and I was _sharing_ it, which made it all the more sweet, all the more precious, since someone was there, right in front of me feeling it too, understanding wholly. It was an alive feeling, a thing of its own, yet _us_, all at the same time. I blinked my green eyes languorously for a second more, savouring the fire that wasn't off burning on the ground, but the one fire smouldering between the both of us, so freeing and light and yet so, so strong, so brilliant that it was a wonder the Mojave was still darkened with night.

I reached out and folded my arms around Cass' slender frame. The first well-spoken thing I'd done all evening. I pulled her close against me and simply held her tight. Pressed together, fitted together like strange puzzle-pieces in the fragmented dark, Cass held me just as hard, maybe a little harder, as I held her, feeling as if one of us, or both, were going to blow away with the wind to disappear into the dark surrounding us. My hand was up in her soft red hair I realized, and my one arm was at the small of her slender back, pushing her closer against me. My head fit perfectly into the curve of her shoulder. And she held me in kind, with her arms wrapped all round my slim waist, nearly crushing the air out of me from her brusque strength, but after a moment or two, I felt her hold relax, felt her reach down to my pip-boy at her back, and then I heard a soft 'click'.

The Mojave Music Radio blared out loudly into the night, breaking all silence. I laughed out loudly, pulled away from Cass, holding her away a little so I could look at her while the radio blasted easy music into the air. Cass laughed at the dumb, open look on my face and she grasped my upper arms tightly. 'Stars of the Midnight Range' was playing out vociferously from my pip-boy, surrounding us both in its simple and happy, pretty country music. Before Cass could speak again, I just stepped close and held her in my arms again. I began moving slowly in time with the music.

"Well," she whispered, her lips alongside the skin of my tingling neck, her hands grasping my shoulders hard, "Since you obviously didn't want to go to bed yet…" she joked half-heartedly.

I smiled, was going to stay quiet, but a thought came to my head, "I've always liked this song…" I mumbled, wonderingly.

Cass laughed. "Me too, Vix." She breathed out a long relaxed breath and pressed closer to me. We shuffled about, lazily dancing together, but mostly just enjoying finally being real together. There was nothing better. Nothing more. Just us and a little music.


End file.
